Living in this society, or any other, people can find themselves falling into different fields within symbolic space. In these fields we take on positions in relation to others and act accordingly. Our positions and the social structures around us become internalized and effect our actions. This is part of habitus, the internalized world from our position in it and our own freewill in decision making. Because we live in a society full of dichotomies, divisions, and other boundaries we find that between positions and fields there is forms of capital. A value system developed by society and enforced by the social structures that we have internalized. These forms of capital work to influence our decision making and they reproduce themselves by their influence on our actions. This sort of power struggle between people in different positions and fields over capital isn’t the end of it though. It continues in most of our everyday actions. A lot of the things we do, say, and think in an everyday situation are often socialized responses from the internalized structures. We may see, act, or think something in one way out of instinct and socialization because that is how we have learned to over time in society. This leads to misrecognizing it and believing something to be a normal everyday act when in fact it is “symbolic violence” Calhoun et al. 2012:331).
Symbolic violence is the way that power is organized and divided up amongst people in a given society. Depending on the field, some will have it and others wont. It is a way of maintaining and reproducing the actors internalized social structures. We may see symbolic violence every day and not recognize it, this is for a few reasons. The first being that it is not like conventional violence. This isn’t one person beating another or one class physically enslaving another, these are acts that we will view as normal and innocent. This is the misrecognition of symbolic violence. Since these things we do that are part of our internalization of social structures we have misrecognized them as innocent and normal when in reality they work to keep one in a dominant position and the other dominated. Symbolic violence can be defined as “the way in which people may be harmed by the ways they are labeled or categorized socially” (Calhoun et al. 2012:331).
The video is from on of my favorite shows “The Big Bang Theory” and in this example we can see have the simple act of gift giving can create power relations. Normally we believe that gift giving is out of love and generosity which it can be, but it is also true that we do at some level expect reciprocity. This first act of giving a gift creates a power dominance by the one that gave the gift over the other to return the act. Then there is the gift itself. Gifts have different values and by one person giving a gift with more value and getting in return a gift of lesser value a power dominance is created. For example a husband might by his wife jewelry which is expected and symbolizes his wealth or dominance. A wife might get her husband something with more sentimental value that shows she cares but at the same time puts her in a dominated position in the relationship. This of course is just an example that is not always true but works to explain symbolic violence in thought to be non violence acts. Also this is all depending on how a society structures their value system and where forms of capital that are valued exist.
Because we live in a world with misrecognition, preconceptions, and social institutions that we have internalized and influence our actions, we must accept this and learn to understand sociology as a combat sport. At first this may not seem to make sense. If a combat sport is people fighting against each other then how is that like sociology? Well if you truly understand what a combat sport really is then it might make a littler more sense.
This picture is of me in my grappling gear next to my belts. As a martial artist I don’t look at combat sports simply like fighting someone else. I see it as starting with nothing, a blank slate. Working my way up in a certain style, developing based on what I learned through my experiences on the mat. Just like our socialization into society. Then when I train with someone from a different style I have to understand that their way of fighting is different from mine, but by fighting with someone different we are able to grow and better understand combat sports as a whole. I can see things in a different way and learn things that I never thought of before. There are many different theories of society in sociology and they all are correct to some extent. It is because of this that we should work together to understand society. Everyone grows up in a field with a position, internalized institutions and misrecognition, even sociologist. Because of our biases our out look on society can be a little biased, but by looking others theories we can better understand society as a whole.
References
Calhoun, Craig, Joseph Gerteis, James Moody, Steven Pfaff, and Indermohan Virk. 2012.
Contemporary Sociological Theory. Third Ed. Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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